This invention relates to a roof gutter.
A gutter installed on a house or other building to receive water from the roof and conduct it to downpipes is commonly of channelled form, and is attached to a fascia board by gutter brackets, the roof tiles or other roofing members projecting over the rear flange of the gutter. To prevent driven rain from entering under the tiles or roofing sheets, and also to conceal the edges of these from view, the front flange of the gutter is normally higher than the rear flange.
Such a gutter has the disadvantage that it may be over-filled during heavy and prolonged rain, or if a down pipe from the gutter should be blocked, with the result that water overflows the rear flange and enters the building structure.
To overcome this disadvantage, it has been proposed to form overflow openings or ports in the front flange of the gutter, below the level of the top of the rear flange, each such opening being formed, for example, by pressing a tongue forwards from the metal below each of a series of longitudinal cuts in the gutter's vertical front flange. These apertures are not apparent when the gutter is viewed from below, but the forwardly extending tongues are clearly visible and detract from the appearance of the gutter. Since the outlet ports are fairly restricted in area, they may, in heavy rainfall conditions, prove inadequate for preventing the gutter from overfilling.
One of the main objects of the present invention is to provide a roof gutter of the general type set out, having formed in its front flange a series of overflow ports which, although they may be of considerable size sufficient to prevent overfill of the gutter in even the most adverse conditions, nevertheless give no indication of their presence when the gutter is viewed from normal line of sight, from below the level of the gutter.
With the foregoing and other objects in view, the invention resides broadly in a roof gutter of the type consisting of a channel with a rear flange, a bottom, and a front flange higher than the rear flange, and with overflow ports in the front flange below the level of the top of the rear flange, wherein the front flange has a continuous longitudinal formation with a surface which is upwardly-facing, viewed from the front, and the overflow ports are located in the said upwardly-facing surface. The longitudinal formation is preferably a groove or recess with rearwardly convergent upper and lower surfaces, and the overflow ports, through the upwardly-facing lower surface, are preferably slotted holes in a longitudinal series. Other features of the invention will become apparent from the following description.